Fort Mountain State Park – 15

10.14.22-10.16.22

Fort Mountain State Park is located in the Chattahoochee National Forest in North Georgia. The park’s main attraction is the epic overlooks with views of the North Georgia mountains. At the top of the mountain hikers will find a stone fire tower built by the Civilian Conservation Corps, open for tours on the weekends. The drive up the mountain has quite a few curves, but our truck did great. 

The park includes a 17-acre lake with paddle boats to rent in the summer, a sand beach, and a putt-putt course. The State Park offers a fully stocked visitors center with plenty of ice and firewood. No cell service at this State Park – guess you can only glamp so much!

The campground offers overnight experiences in 15 fully stocked cottages and 62 campsites. A couple of the cottages have overlook views of their own and some of them are directly off the trail around the lake. My parents rented cabin 9 this particular week (more details on Fort Mountain cabins). The campsites are split into two sections. The roads throughout the campground are narrow, with sharp turns and deep drop-offs. Anyone with a larger rig would need to be comfortable with their set-up to navigate through this park.

Last time we were at Fort Mountain State Park in 2020 we stayed in campsite 21. From that trip I had my eye on pull-thru site 15. This campsite appealed to me because of its view of the woods, access to the creek, and large pull-thru driveway. Campsite 15 has a 50-foot driveway and large pad for a tent. The sites on either side are both pull-thru sites which mean there isn’t a ton of privacy. Fortunately, the people in campsite 17 parked in such a way that we weren’t looking into each other’s sites the whole time. There are a couple trees between campsite 15 and 13—great for hammocks. 

Georgia has not received much rainfall this season, therefore the creek behind site 15 was not flowing. If we had hiked the Big Rock Nature Trail (.75 mile) the lack of rain would have been evident in the waterfalls. In mid October the leaves are just starting to change in Chatsworth, GA. Autumn is the most popular to camp in the North Georgia Mountains. 

On Saturday we hiked the West Overlook and CCC Mining Trail and stopped at the Cool Springs Overlook. We have decided after three visits to Fort Mountain State Park that we prefer to take the West Overlook up the mountain and then to come back down the steps at the stone wall. 

As mentioned earlier, Fort Mountain State Park campground has little to no cell phone service. We are big University of Tennessee fans and it was the weekend of the Alabama game. We needed to figure out a way to watch the game. At cottage 9 we were able to get good AT&T cell service, but we wanted to watch the game outside—preferably at our campsite so the dogs could be with us. The game was on CBS which pulled up on both our inside camper TV and in the cabin. We have our own antenna that we have only used once before; unfortunately it only pulled four stations. Thankfully my dad brought an antenna from his house, a spectrum HDTV antenna. It pulled 52 stations (some duplicates), but most importantly the CBS game. 

What a game it was! Tennessee beat Alabama 52 to 49. At the end of the game you could hear us singing “Rocky Top” throughout the campground. If you can’t be at the football game, watching it at a campground has to be the next best location. 

On the way back down the mountain after check-out on Sunday we came across a white shade tent with a photographer that took photos of our truck and camper. Nathan Curtis had a large banner with his instagram handle on it and of course I found him immediately. His photos are awesome!